rse and that the sun and planets revolve about it,
was the theory that held the highest respect.

Copernicus, in 1543, was first to bring clearly before the world the
then astounding theory that the earth and planets revolve about the sun.
But not until he was on his deathbed did he dare to publish it, for he
well knew the opposition with which it would be met. Even then he
published it with an apologetic lie by a friend Osiander, that
Copernicus had propounded the doctrine of the earth's movement not as a
fact, but as a hypothesis.

"Thus was the greatest and most ennobling, perhaps, of scientific
truths--a truth not less ennobling to religion than to science--forced
in coming before the world, to sneak and crawl." (_White: "History of
Warfare of Science with Theology."_)

During the next seventy years the matter slumbered, until Galileo upheld
the Copernican doctrine as the truth, and proved it to be the truth by
his telescope. Immediately the Church condemned the statements of
Copernicus and forbade Galileo to teach or discuss them. All books which
affirmed the motion of the earth were forbidden, and to read the work of
Copernicus was declared to risk damnation. All branches of the
Protestant Church, Lutheran, Calvinist, Anglican, vied with each other
in denouncing the Copernican doctrine.

One man, Giordano Bruno dared to assert the truth in the hearing of the
Papacy. For this heresy he was hunted from land to land, finally trapped
in Venice, imprisoned at Rome, burned alive, and his ashes scattered to
the winds!

Against Galileo, the war against the Copernican theory was concentrated.
His discoveries were declared to be deceptions, and his announcements
blasphemy when, in 1610, he announced that his telescope had revealed
the moons of the planet Jupiter.

In 1615, Galileo was summoned before the Inquisition at Rome, and forced
to promise that he would "relinquish altogether the opinion that the sun
is the center of the world, and immovable, and that the earth moves, nor
henceforth to hold, teach, or defend it in any way whatsoever verbally
or in writing."

Pope Paul V solemnly rendered the decree that "the doctrine of the
double motion of the earth about its axis and about the sun is false and
entirely contrary to Holy Scripture."

The climax of this instance of the infallibility of the Church occurred
when in his seventieth year Galileo was again brought before the
Inquisition; he was forced to abjure un